INTERVIEW: Maximiliano Baranoff is Director of Innovation & New Companies at Argentina-based IHS Grupo, the place he leads strategic initiatives throughout seed growth, varietal validation, industrial hemp worth chain design, and market creation. He has labored on subject trials, processing fashions, and early-stage business structuring throughout Latin America, collaborating with analysis establishments, non-public traders, and authorities stakeholders. Baranoff’s work focuses on constructing scalable hemp programs from genetics and cultivation via processing, commercialization, and export growth, with an emphasis on regional competitiveness, bioeconomy fashions, and sustainable industrial development. He’s based mostly in Spain.
HempToday: Everybody says “seed is foundational.” What particularly is damaged right now in hemp seed programs?
Maximiliano Baranoff: The business typically treats seed as a commodity enter, when in actuality seed is strategic infrastructure. With out dependable genetics, each different a part of the worth chain turns into dearer and fewer predictable.
As we speak we nonetheless face three structural issues: inconsistent genetics, restricted regional adaptation information, and certification programs that weren’t designed for hemp’s present industrial makes use of.
Many growers are shopping for seed, however not all the time shopping for certainty. And certainty is what processors, traders, and regulators in the end want.
HT: How distant is Argentina from having dependable, licensed seed at a industrial scale?
MB: Argentina has the agronomic potential, scientific expertise, and environmental range to develop into extremely aggressive in hemp seed manufacturing. What is required now could be execution: clear regulatory pathways, multiplication capability, subject validation, and demand alerts from downstream industries.
Meet Maximiliano Baranoff at this 12 months’s EIHA Convention Session:
Seeds, Genetics & THC: Constructing the Sector from the Floor Up
June 11-12, 2026 | Poznań, Poland.
We now have already moved past pilots and comparative trials into early industrial plantings. The subsequent section is scaling consistency—dependable seed volumes, secure efficiency throughout areas, and certification programs aligned with market wants. Progress can speed up considerably via sensible partnerships fairly than relying solely on long-term breeding cycles.
A superb instance is the work we now have been growing via the Polish Hemp Program, targeted on native seed multiplication and varietal adaptation underneath Argentine circumstances. This method permits confirmed European genetics to be evaluated, multiplied, and built-in into native manufacturing programs now—creating fast pathways for cultivation and industrial use whereas home breeding packages proceed to mature.
That issues as a result of worth chains are usually not constructed from the highest down. To strengthen seed programs upstream, first we should reveal actual demand downstream—in meals substances, fiber purposes, animal diet, and different industrial markets. As soon as markets reply, genetics, certification, and funding are likely to scale a lot quicker.
HT: What have your subject trials proven about varietal efficiency in Latin American circumstances?
MB: The primary lesson is that imported genetics don’t routinely develop into profitable native genetics. Latitude, photoperiod, rainfall patterns, soil sorts, and operational practices all affect efficiency.
Some varieties present glorious vegetative development however poor flowering timing. Others generate biomass however inconsistent fiber high quality. In grain manufacturing, maturity timing, standability, and harvest effectivity develop into decisive.
Our conclusion is easy: native validation is the bridge between promising genetics and bankable manufacturing.
HT: Is the business underestimating the time it takes to stabilize genetics for fiber and grain?
MB: Sure, considerably. Markets typically transfer quicker than biology.
Strong breeding packages require a number of cycles of choice, environmental testing, trait consistency, and seed multiplication. For fiber and grain, you’re breeding not just for agronomic efficiency, however for industrial efficiency.
Uniform stem traits, harvestability, grain retention, fiber habits, and processing compatibility all matter. That takes time, self-discipline, and capital.
HT: Can Latin America realistically compete on seed, or will it stay depending on Europe and China?
MB: Latin America can completely compete, however not by attempting to copy Europe or China. It should construct its personal strategic position.
The area presents counter-season multiplication benefits, various agro-climatic zones, aggressive manufacturing prices, and rising technical capability. That creates alternatives in seed enhance, regional adaptation, and future export packages.
Europe and China will stay main international leaders, however Latin America can develop into a helpful complementary platform inside a extra diversified international hemp seed system.
HT: Are present certification programs match for goal, or do they have to be redesigned for hemp?
MB: Most programs want modernization. Many certification frameworks have been created for standard crops with mature breeding histories and easier market buildings. Hemp is completely different.
As we speak certification should deal with varietal identification, THC compliance, end-use segmentation, traceability, and fast innovation cycles.
We’d like programs that protect rigor whereas changing into quicker, science-based, and extra internationally harmonized.
HT: How do you steadiness breeding for yield vs. processing high quality in fiber purposes?
MB: Yield alone might be deceptive. Excessive biomass solely issues if processors can effectively convert it into helpful output.
The long run isn’t most tonnage—it’s usable tonnage. Meaning combining subject productiveness with fiber size, bast proportion, uniformity, moisture habits, and compatibility with industrial tools.
The strongest varieties will likely be these designed with each farmers and processors in thoughts.
HT: In case you needed to prioritize one breakthrough within the subsequent 3–5 years, what would transfer the business quickest?
MB: A globally trusted pipeline of licensed, purpose-built seed.
If growers can entry dependable genetics matched to fiber, grain, or meals purposes—with predictable compliance and efficiency—the complete business accelerates. Farmers achieve confidence, processors safe feedstock, financiers cut back danger, and governments see legitimacy.
Seed is the place scale begins.
